


Something to Brag About

by GoldenThreads



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Married Life, Relationship Negotiation, Wife Guy von Aegir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/pseuds/GoldenThreads
Summary: Praise is easy between the two of them, but sharing it with the world is another story.Or, Ferdinand returns home from a celebratory gala to his mess of a wife.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61
Collections: Fernadetta Week





	Something to Brag About

**Author's Note:**

> A small offering to Fernadetta Week!! Thank you for your hard work!
> 
> Love me some RSD Ferdinand who preemptively course-corrects to protect his self-rejecting wife...
> 
> General canon warnings for Bernie's wife-related issues, though mostly featuring here in terms of anxiety.

It is the duty of a wife to make her husband shine.

Just as the gleam of a signet ring draws the world’s attention to a nobleman’s power and prestige, so the glowing smile of a captivating wife reveals his virtues to the world. She is the one who goes forth and charms the people, who weaves everyday domestic squabbles into grand narratives of his guidance, who fills every man’s heart with envy for he that possesses such a glorious creature. If there is love, so much the better — husband and wife will lock eyes across parlors and ballrooms, a front of unrivaled unity in a world so tediously fractured.

Tonight, Prime Minister Aegir attended the ribbon-cutting gala for the new board of education headquarters.

His wife did not attend.

  


—

  


Ferdinand is easy. It’s taken Bernadetta eight fretful years to make it to that level of simplicity, sure, but that’s mostly because it took forever to invite him past the doors of Politeness and Friendship and Trust and ~~Intimacy~~ and the point!! The point is that. Ferdinand doesn’t need much. He asks for even less. Mostly he asks to hear Bernadetta’s opinions and desires, which makes figuring out what he _does_ need rather complicated, so really it’s a relief he’s so easy 99% of the time. 

Not that the 1% isn’t enough to send Bernadetta into paroxysms of anxiety, of course.

Like tonight.

The gala. The Bernadetta-less gala. The one that all their friends are attending, even those who no longer reside in Enbarr, because it’s the first big celebration of Ferdinand’s political successes. Getting the endangered nobles of Adrestia to do anything for the public is like pulling the teeth of a demonic beast that yowls and squirms and keeps trying to bribe you behind your back to boot. He’s worked so _hard._

And Bernadetta knows that better than anyone, because it was her ear that harbored all his doubts and worries and complaints about it! After everything, he deserves a perfect night. 

(…He didn’t even invite her. Which is good! Not being invited is better than having to discuss it, or _worse,_ turn him down. It definitely doesn’t bother her at all or stick like a barb in the squishy pink mush of her brain.)

Bernadetta can’t go be a little gilded songbird on his shoulder at the gala. She can’t. So she has to be the little wren that builds a perfect nest instead, which isn’t so hard. Nesting has been her chief profession all her life, and scurrying around the house is second nature. (First nature?) She tends the fireplace to a proper roar, fills the bedpan with hot rocks to make sure Ferdinand’s feet don’t get chilly whenever he turns in, prepares a tray of small sandwiches in case he’s feeling peckish, clips some fresh bluebells for the parlor vase, crawls around on the floor rolling up all the amber and lavender hairballs until the carpet is spotless, dusts all the framed portraits of his favorite horses in the hall, makes sure his coats are properly draped in the closet so they don’t get wrinkled, screams into a pillow a little bit, lights all the candles in the hallway, remakes the sandwiches because the lettuce has started to wilt, assembles his favorite tea set, knocks over the bluebells and sends water splashing all over the carpet—

“Darling?”

She freezes. 

Like a clockwork doll, the gears in Bernadetta’s head click round and round to force her limbs back into movement. Her head turns. There, in the doorway, illuminated by an aura of candlelight, stands the Prime Minister of Adrestia. Here, on the floor, wet and wretched, cowers his wife.

Her throat seizes up. She shuts her eyes, heaves in a breath, and raps her knuckles on the floorboards two times.

At once, Ferdinand sweeps inside and over to the far table. He fiddles with his cuff links as he goes, and Bernadetta’s eyes follow their golden gleam through the dim shadows beyond the fireplace’s glow.

“You will never guess who showed up at the evening’s event! Ah, let me first add that everything went off without a hitch, owing to the ceaseless work of our staff and imperial party planners. Even the Hevrings were hard-pressed to find any insufficiency worth grumbling about, though I dare say the Countess could scarcely voice a complaint around all the peach torte in her mouth. Do remind me to send Constance an invitation for lunch this week so I can thank her properly for the recommendation.”

Ferdinand’s voice fills their home with warmth and light, and although he folds his coat and drapes it over a distant chair, Bernadetta can almost imagine it tucked around her shoulders instead. Such is the sudden familiar weight of his presence.

“Where was I… The guests! As you recall, Lorenz has not yet succeeded in forcing through his own education measures — the Roundtable has agreed to _administer_ such a system, but not to fund it, and they have gotten all wrapped up in what standards of curriculum will be enforced. Diversions, you understand. I expected the attendance of Gloucester this evening but Lorenz went one further.”

He undoes his cravat, slides out of vest and gloves and socks, and reties the plush velvet ribbon in his hair until it actually serves the function of keeping those tresses out of his face. And off the floor.

“A full delegation from the Alliance Trade Association joined us midway through the celebration, and our own Sir Victor announced that the merchants guild wishes to partner with us to bring about similar education opportunities in the north! They have pulled the rug out from under the nobles — after shaking my hand in front of all Enbarr’s elites, there will be no question of our support. Lorenz intends to integrate the state sponsorship after the foundations are built. No more delays.”

“B-but. Your gala.”

Ferdinand chuckles warmly. “Much as I enjoyed the spotlight, the gift of progress has no equal!”

He’s right, but something in the way he demurs strikes Bernadetta all wrong. It means _everything_ for him to hear the Aegir name associated with genuine service to the common people. To shrug it off to embrace someone else’s political stunt is wrong. Ferdinand never said anything about it to her, so it probably came as a surprise, unless maybe he knew about it in advance? Maybe he’s just talking about this, talking and talking, because Bernadetta needed him to drag her out of a panic without suffocating her, and he’s actually burying down all his frustration or the actual events of the gala because he’s afraid of upsetting her, which isn’t. Okay.

If Bernadetta had actually gone, then she’d already know. If she actually participated in her husband’s public life at all, she wouldn’t have so many questions! 

How much more would Ferdinand have enjoyed such accolades with his wife by his side? She lessened it. Ruined it. No matter how grand the event, it could have, should have been better, because Ferdinand deserved the very heights of happiness! They could not even host a public wedding; Bernadetta had gutted his life from the very start.

“They are lovely,” Ferdinand hums, suddenly very near to her.

Bernadetta blinks through her tears to find him sitting aside her, a respectable yard of distance between them, with the bluebells held gently between his fingers. 

“Did you pick them for me?”

“Yes. I w-wanted you to have a perfect evening.” 

The fireplace casts subtle shadows across them, emphasizing the depth of emotion in Ferdinand’s smile as he professes, “You are here with me. I could ask for no more.”

“You don’t ask for anything!” All of her stoppered up words start spilling free, and when they can’t all fly from her mouth they dig down into her bones to make her limbs jitter unhappily. “You just, you know Bernie’s so useless that she can’t do anything, can’t even welcome you home, so you don’t even _ask_ and then I think of all the things I’ve made you too afraid to ask for and you’d be so much happier if, if—”

_“Bernadetta,”_ he barks, the way he used to do on fields of bones and blood, when they were commanders who had each other’s back. It doesn’t sound like an angry husband. It sounds like a frightened Ferdinand.

She presses her palms over the hollows of her eyes and breathes.

“…Did you want to go to the gala?”

“No. But you’d be happier if I had.”

_Did I ever say that?,_ he’ll ask next, and then she’ll have to question all her own questions, and she’ll end up even less certain of herself than before. Because it’s not always about what you say. Nobility is rules and pleasantries, and he’s always been so much better at them than she is, so there has to be something she’s missing. 

He sighs, and Bernadetta hears the whisper of cloth as he shakes his head. She really needs to let out his collar. 

“No,” Ferdinand says, “I wouldn’t.”

_“What?”_ Bernadetta drops her hands at once to gape at him. Did he just admit he didn’t want her around?!

Before she can tumble down that next line of thought, Ferdinand gently takes both of her hands into his, bare and far too rough for a pampered noble. He folds the broken bluebells in between their fingers. “I love you. I love the you that you are. Would it make you happier to bring your orchids to Faerghus for the winter? If a gardener rejoices to keep his blooms in the greenhouse most hospitable to them, cannot a husband do the same?”

“I’m not a flower, Ferdinand. I wouldn’t—I mean, I _would_ wilt, but it wouldn’t kill me. Probably.”

“It does not enable your thriving,” he concludes firmly, as though arguing with the head of the Adrestian Botanical Society about planting palm trees on the coast. 

“That’s not the point! What if Bernie wants to enable _your_ thriving for once, huh!” 

Ferdinand frowns at her, but it isn’t his typically reserved look of The Prime Minister Must Ponder This Complication. It’s the way he used to look when she slammed her door in his face at the monastery, half kicked puppy and half ambitious pony trying to manifest a new pair of wings, as though will power could solve every problem in the world. “Do you… Hm. Might I ask how your presence would change things?”

“I…” 

Would freeze up. Would be a nuisance. Everyone would stare at her, the reclusive little witch that ensnared the Prime Minister and prevented him from finding a better match. They’d ask why her manners were funny, why they didn’t have children yet, why the Emperor would ever consult such a useless speck of soil as Bernadetta von Varley. 

But if it went perfectly, then Ferdinand would do just one thing. His favorite thing of all. “You’d be able to brag about me,” she mumbled. “Not! That Bernie has done anything worth bragging about, but you always like to…talk. So you could talk, about me, and I’d be in the same room, so people wouldn’t get confused.”

It might be the silliest thing she’s ever said to him, even taking into account the time she painted his wyvern because it wanted to look pretty in the spring.

Ferdinand’s eyebrows shoot up, but instead of biting his upper lip to hold in his mirth, he flushes and averts his gaze to the fire. “Do you truly think anything stops me from bragging about you?”

She picks one of the little blue bells off its stem and squishes it between her fingers. “What’s there to say?”

In an instant, Ferdinand is back on his feet and hurtling across the room like a whirlwind. He throws his vest over one arm, then rifles through the pockets of his coat before bringing that as well. Even his cravat is snatched for the display, and when he returns it is with his arms draped in fine fabric. “ _This!_ This is what everyone sees. There have been satirical cartoons about it! Hubert clips them and leaves them in my office with scathing little notes about dialing back my public affections—”

He’s just holding clothes. 

“Are they…bad?” Maybe he’s gotten onto a Fodlan’s Worst Dressed list because of the little embellishments she added here and there… That would certainly be worth a mean drawing. 

Ferdinand tucks himself back at her side, so that between him and the fireplace there is no escaping the warmth of a loving home. He draws her hands and her eyes back to the work, pressing each piece eagerly into her lap in turn, until her head dances with the golden griffins of his coat lapels and the faint patterning of pegasi dancing through snowflakes stitched in silver upon his cravat. It took weeks to rework his house insignia into a sprawling geometrical pattern for his vest, a complex basket bearing a garden of free-form apple blossoms atop the weave.

“They are the farthest thing from bad,” he promises. “I can scarcely hold a conversation without my partner diverting it to matters of fine art, their esteem for traditional crafts, and whether they might be introduced to my personal seamstress. Not that I consider you merely my personal seamstress! I would never demean your place in my life—”

No. No no no. This is all too much! “What do you mean by introduced?”

And Ferdinand spills two dozen calling cards onto the floor. “These are only from tonight. I have a whole drawer of them. I insist you do not take commissions, but your admirers live in hope.”

“For embroidery. From your wife.”

His face eclipses the fireplace with its burn. “ _No!_ From my…seamstress. And I speak of you in other capacities as well! My artist, my secretary, my—”

“But not your wife.” Bernadetta forces a tremulous smile. “I really am that bad at it, huh…”

“Darling, no. No.” His hand rises as if to pull at his hair in frustration, and then he sinks down against her instead, burying his face in her hair. “Why would I define you by something you fear? You are manifold, you must understand. I have someone who loves me enough to stitch affection into every square inch of my suit. Who dresses me in such immaculate armor before I march to battle against the world’s callous eyes. I do not grieve your absence in the field — how can you be absent, when I am enshrouded by your care? — and the knowledge that you are home, in our home, drives me ever onward to a world where all know such comfort. Of course I speak of that someone. I can scarcely bite my tongue and keep from doting on your every private victory! Modesty alone restrains me, for attention would wither you. So I deflect and divide. Some know my seamstress, others the secretary who is the true hand between my winning speeches. I ensure your accomplishments are toasted by all, yet I preserve your solace. If that is not to your liking, then admonish me as you see fit. But if you ask what I _want,_ it is this. This whole unimaginable wealth of you. To tire and return to find you waiting. Bluebells in hand.”

(Actually they were on the floor, but Bernadetta doesn’t correct him.)

She’s not entirely sure what to say to any of that. Thank the Goddess that Ferdinand is easy, and all she has to do is squirm into his lap while he holds her and puts himself back together. 

He brags about her fussy stitches on his jacket. About the way she organizes his desk, edits his speeches, and sketches his ponies. About her, but not her, because he never gives her name. It’s weird to think there’s another Bernadetta out there who’s so universally admired, who went out and charmed the world without even trying. Weird and nice.

Here in Ferdinand’s arms, with no one to see her, she can breathe just fine.

“Bluebells aren’t always in season,” she mumbles, just to see the relief on his face when he shifts to argue and discovers her hesitant smile instead.

Ferdinand ducks his head to press a kiss against her brow. “Then I shall eagerly anticipate next season’s freshest clippings.”

Sinking down against his chest, only a thin barrier of white cotton between her cheek and his thrumming heart, Bernadetta nudges him into another barrage of stories from the gala. This can work. He brags to her about his own adventures, and he brags about her to the world, so all that’s left to make it perfect is a little bragging of her own, right?

She writes under a pen name. If her next hero is a little more dashingly idealistic, a little broader in the shoulders with stunning cavalier thighs, an absolute vision at sunset and sunrise alike, and so forthright he tumbles down the hill into convoluted feats of compassion every single time…

Well. She’ll surely have her own drawer of all the letters complaining about Frederick von Myre’s implausibly faultless characterization soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Hubert: If I have to m*rder one more political cartoonist who drew you suffocating the council with 500 speech bubbles about your 'seamstress', I swear--


End file.
